The Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen's Houthis said it intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles fired by the Iran-aligned group towards Riyadh on Sunday (8 November), after loud booms were heard in the Saudi capital.
Saudi Civil Defense had issued an alert in the Riyadh region shortly before the booms, a Reuters witness said. Authorities later announced that the risk of danger had passed.
Later, the coalition said it intercepted and destroyed two cruise missiles in Riyadh and the southern region.
Fighting between the sides has shattered a 2022 United Nations brokered truce, after Saudi Arabia led a coalition of Arab states into Yemen in 2015 to restore the internationally recognised government following the Houthis' seizure of the capital Sanaa.
The renewed fighting has become a front in the wider Middle East war triggered by U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran in February.
The Houthis have targeted Saudi airports, ports and oil facilities with missiles and drones since hostilities resumed in July, while Saudi Arabia has carried out airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.
Houthi-run health ministry says airstrikes kill 33 near Yemen capital
The latest incident comes a day after Yemen's Houthi-run health ministry said Saudi airstrikes killed at least 33 people near Sanaa on Saturday. Saudi authorities said they were investigating.
It is one of the deadliest reported attacks since fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-aligned group resumed in July.
Reuters could not independently verify the account. Saudi Arabia's Center for International Communication said it was investigating the report.
The ministry said the strikes hit homes in the town of Bani Hushaysh, a Houthi stronghold east of Sanaa, and that most of those killed were women and children.
Abdul-Aziz al-Dailami, director of Sehatuna Hospital in Sanaa, said many victims remained trapped under the rubble, including first responders.
“The strikes keep coming. Just as rescuers arrive, another strike hits. We have even lost some of our own medical responders, who have been martyred,” he told Reuters.
“We received a number of wounded individuals in very critical condition, with injuries to the head, chest and legs, as well as fractures,” al-Dailami added.
The fighting, a spillover from the wider U.S.-Iran conflict, has revived a complex 12-year war in Yemen that has caused one of the worst humanitarian crises globally and fragmented the Arab world's most impoverished country.
The number of people displaced since the latest round of fighting began has climbed to more than 200,000, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in October.
Meanwhile, Syria has no plans to send troops to Yemen, a Syrian diplomatic source told state news agency SANA, dismissing reports of a possible deployment while adding that military cooperation with Saudi Arabia could eventually expand.
Reuters reported on Friday (6 November), citing two Syrian military sources and a senior U.S. official, that Syria had sent a limited number of military personnel to Saudi Arabia in recent weeks to provide military advice and training as the kingdom faces attacks by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis.
The source told SANA that the current military cooperation focused on training forces, building their capabilities and exchanging military expertise. Coordination visits by Saudi officials to Syria are set to begin next month, with the cooperation potentially developing into a mutual defence agreement or Syria joining the Mecca Pact, depending on the shared interests of both countries, the source said.
The Mecca Pact is a defence agreement signed in Mecca in August by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye. Türkiye ratified the pact on Thursday (5 November), clearing the way for Ankara to provide military support to Riyadh.
Syria and Saudi Arabia signed the defence cooperation deal on Wednesday (4 November) during a visit to Riyadh by Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa for his second meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in less than a month. A senior Syrian diplomat described the agreement as “a broad framework for military cooperation.”
Syria has emerged as a close ally of Saudi Arabia and the United States since rebels led by Sharaa toppled Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Iran, in 2024.
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